Teacher's Pet
by Blue Jeans
Summary: Manga compliant, Sakura-centric. After the loss of her first patient Sakura's teachers, past and present, all decided to give her some much needed advice. From shinobi life to boys, they can't seem to stop once they start. Set during the 2 years time skip.
1. Chapter 1

_"Truth is not relative, our understanding of it is." _

* * *

**Teacher's Pet **

_by Blue Jeans_

* * *

When Sakura finally had an intimate meeting with Death, it was not in the same way either Naruto or Sasuke had, and it certainly wasn't while she was Kakashi's student. She doesn't learn it by making a decision on a bridge, out of misunderstanding and desperation, ready to throw away her innocence and nearly succeeding. She doesn't learn it by witnessing something precious torn from her by someone she loved while she stood hopelessly by. Sakura learned this reality beneath her Shishou's uncompromising stare as a life bled out from beneath her desperate, useless fingers. Death, it pried that life from her grasps, right out of the heart in her hands. She had been holding onto that organ all the way until the end, even after it had shuddered to a rest. 

Forever, suddenly, seemed like a long time to not exist.

The memory of her earlier excitement at this simple surgery was now a burden to bear. It had been her fourth one and she had been nothing if not confident. Sakura never failed, her record was impeccable, though any surgery she did participate in still managed to make her heart flutter with anticipation. She had basked in the feeling, not even minding the fact that it was her _fourth_. If she had been more superstitious, maybe she would have taken a hint.

She learned quickly in that room, how similar the feeling of death was from when a fish or a rabbit or an animal died, though none of those previous experiences and failures had prepared her for the real thing. The almost apathetic realization terrified her a little, its familiarity nothing she wanted to be acquainted with and the emptiness of the aftermath made her feel like a stranger inside her own skin. And though Sakura never fantasized about the first time she'd have to kill another human being, she had at least believed, unquestioningly in her youth, that this type of experience would happen on a battle-field or in the silent shadows of an assassination. It would also most likely occur during an A-ranked mission.

A mission when she was at least a Jounin.

How practical the belief had been or how she would react to it and who would comfort her when it happened, all of those little unspoken details and expectations fell to pieces when it finally happened. _In the end, did these things make a difference?_ However, what definitely did not happen was that Tsunade did _not_ reassure her. There was a hint of pity in those familiar eyes when her teacher looked away, but Sakura could not decipher what that look had meant. She had assumed that it was Tsunade's way of hiding her disappointment. After all, it was Shizune who chased her dazed and frazzled form down the hospital corridors, clutching her shoulders while Sakura watched the other's mouth move in front of her blankly. She didn't hear a word of it, but did that even matter? Words could not change what had happened.

And even if her large-sized brain insisted that she wasn't at fault, it only sounded like false reassurances.

Incompetence cost you the lives of your comrades on the field, she already knew that intimately as a shinobi. But it just wasn't the same when patients died on you in a hospital. It was not the same as being on a battle-field, sleep-deprived and driven by fear, knowing at any moment that a compromise of your own life could mean the death of your team. It was the feel of someone's muscles becoming lax and giving in on an operating table, safe at the heart of Konoha, with no real reason to why the operation did not go perfectly. It was when healing and making her patients whole again was so close an achievement that Sakura could almost taste the blood on her lips, the realization of that reality at the tip of her tongue.

The expectation was what was hardest to let go of. Life ended beneath her fingers and circulation stopped forever when she had thought she had all the time in the world to fix what was wrong. This made it hard for Sakura to believe that the cause was anything else than her not being fast enough or strong enough or skilled enough and no amount of intellectualizing it made these facts feel any less factual.

She should have been able to heal him. This belief plagued her again and again as she staggered out of the small surgery room that once had been heaven to her. Even worse, another part of her called this a weakness, the part of her that acted and sounded like Sasuke, the shadow of her past. She should be able to handle this disappointment, it insisted. All that time spent on herb-lore and chakra, the endless nights of medical ninjutsu scrolls, piled with the knowledge of the human-body, always read over twice and inspected a third, until her brain shuts her down at her desk because she wouldn't leave it for the bed. After all of that, was she supposed to just take it with a smile? _Oh, sorry, but those skills of a medic-nin I've worked so hard to acquire just wasn't good enough for this one to live through, while better luck next time!_

Sakura felt cheated.

The finality of this made her sick to her stomach, too. Dry heaves were trying to work its way up her diaphragm as she fought back the nausea. Not that she had anything in her to expel since she hadn't really eaten in the last thirteen hours. And god, did she have to be the one to tell the parents...? She couldn't do it. Couldn't just stand there and make it sound like death was a routine and that her heart was made of stone. She also couldn't sit by them and grieve with them because it wasn't her place and she didn't have the right.

She was a coward. Naruto would be ashamed of her if he knew she was in this dilemma and Sasuke would be more so than Naruto because he had been right all along, she really was weak. Her blond teammate hadn't even returned yet and they weren't even ready to go after Sasuke, how could she fail now? How could she fail like this? But the accusations racing through her brain couldn't make her focus on the world outside, couldn't push her to confront what she really was avoiding since she ran away from her responsibilities.

But she had _known_ him and that had been the most painful thing of all.

How could she forget this boy who looked like Sasuke and acted like Naruto? How could she forget the smile he gave her while Shizune quizzed her on his pre-operation conditions and the treatment to expect? How could she forget his familiar dreams of protecting Konoha and the trust he gave to her so easily? If any of her boys could look so care-free... had a chance to be this happy... And inside, Sakura had vowed to protect that light that Sasuke never smiled with and Naruto always hid behind.

"It's alright. We'll have you all patched up before you know it!" The assurance had come so easily to assuage those fears that she had witnessed on his face. She had been so sure before the surgery and now those words were lies. It was a promise she could not keep.

Sakura felt like scum. She finally understood then how Naruto must have felt when he failed to keep his promise to her about bringing Sasuke back. When he had looked so forlorn in that recovery room, had she ever really understood the pain he felt or was it only her own that she had been clinging to all this time? The failure of not keeping a promise was the most painful thing she had ever experienced up to now, but Naruto had to face her in the aftermath of his failure too.

All this time, Naruto had always been alone, Sakura realized. All this time, she had been so sure he didn't understand anything when it was her who understood so little, who had always been the most naive. She knew now that this feeling was even worse than when Sasuke had left her. It was worse than when Naruto and Kakashi had soon took off in the aftermath. Even though the other two had not abandoned her, even though she tried not to think about it, she had felt like the one who was left behind. Even then she had not, at the time, thought that such a sharp anguish or that lingering misery could ever sting her as sharply as Sasuke's betrayal. And, in this dark corner of discovery, she knew at last why Naruto was running after Sasuke so hard.

She had been wrong then too...

"Snap out of it, Sakura," Tsunade's voice boomed suddenly into her ears, leaving them ringing. The sharp stinging feeling of a slap spread across her left cheek. The white wall of the hospital hallway swam into view as she stared at it blankly. For a moment, the pain was enough to pull her out of her thoughts. Her inner self was almost annoyed enough to comment that Tsunade-shishou probably pulled a muscle in Sakura's neck with that forceful blow, but then she remembered. She remembered that her epiphany about Naruto came only after the death of a child. The blood of the boy's stained her hospital uniform red with left-over blood, his left-over memories of existence. Her earlier anger evaporated immediately when she realized how silly it was that she was getting annoyed about getting slapped when she deserved far worse.

A boy was dead because she wasn't good enough. And was this a prelude of things to come?

"He knew the operation was a risk, just like his parents, Sakura. We made no guarantees that it would be a success. You did more than what was expected when you tried to revive him." Tsunade spoke heatedly at the defeated slump of her student's form. This look made Tsunade feel all the more helpless after such a tragic operation, and when Tsunade felt helpless she got angry. At that moment, the Godaime wished for sake and was annoyed all the more because there wasn't any such thing near at hand.

"I know... I can't... I still failed him." Sakura answered brokenly, miserably. There was now the taste of her own blood in her mouth, almost making the situation too real for Sakura to handle. She wished silently then that Tsunade had not lessened the impact of that slap. "I promised him I'd make him whole. I promised and I failed." She confessed, unable to keep that fact to herself any longer.

For a brief moment, her shishou paused at this. "Then that's one mistake you'll know never to repeat again," Tsunade eventually said unsympathetically, tone weary but sure. "These things happen, Sakura." This time it is Tsunade's fingers wrapping around Sakura's useless arms as her teacher pulled her up from the wall to face her, or tried to. There was gentleness in that gaze that made Sakura ache when she finally looked up. She hated that look. Mercy was not something Sakura deserved and pity was not anything she wanted. But Tsunade always had more than just compassion to give. The Godaime was her teacher first, after all. "As a medic-nin, you must _never_ react like that on the battle-field. Do you understand, Sakura? If you got that depressed every-time you are unable to help a teammate, you will put yourself and the rest of the team in danger, as well."

"I know that," Sakura bit out immediately, her green eyes burning with indignation and helpless rage.

"Do you really?" Tsunade demanded.

"Tsunade-sama?" Shizune broke in hesitantly, as if to say that the comment was too harsh. Ton-ton hid behind the other's legs and was strangely quiet in the somber atmosphere. This time, Sakura heard Shizune's voice, but Sakura ducked her head down low now that her earlier anger had vanished. She did not want to be protected from the truth either. She knew she was probably being ungrateful, but Sakura was sick of being always considered the weak one. "This is the first patient she lost! The first one is always the hardest for every medic."

Sakura did not see Tsunade shake her head at her assistant nor did she face Tsunade's glare. "She doesn't have time for that. After all, she'll only lose more in the future, anyway."

Sakura froze at this statement. Fear paralyzing her form. "Wh-what?"

"A shinobi's life isn't a fairytale, Sakura, and you know this perfectly well. You are a kunoichi and this is the path you have chosen. You are also not just any type of kunoichi either, but a medic-nin. You have known and now you can finally understand that we don't live in a perfect world and that means you won't always have the means to do your job or the skills to fight off death. Your enemies will be numerous in your life-time and your teammates will sometimes die. That is the fact of being a medic-nin and we cannot afford to deny it to be anything less than what it is. We are sent out to prevent death where we can, Sakura, but we are not gods. We cannot do more than what is within the range of our skills and our capabilities."

Naruto... Kakashi... Sasuke... Sakura had a brief flash of their faces and their fading voices roared in her ears. If she ever failed them it would be their blood staining her hands and their dreams ending in a flash. Could she do it knowing this? Would she be able to handle such a truth if she failed them too, someday?

_"I won't let my comrades die!" _

_"I'm going to become the Hokage in my own way!" _

_"There is a man I must kill." _

"Will you give up now?" Tsunade asked Sakura's frozen form. "Now that you have tasted death," Tsunade said louder, "what will you do, Sakura?"

"Was it hopeless?" Sakura asked at last. "Was there anything else I could have done to save him?"

"Was it your fault? Is that what you want to know?" Tsunade asked. "That's a stupid question."

"Shishou--!!"

"No surgery guarantees 100 percent success, and anyone who believes that is a fool." Tsunade cut in to Sakura's protests. Shizune looked away at this, perhaps remembering her first time with a failed patient as well. "If I had said that it was hopeless, that he would have died anyway, even if we operated, would that have made a difference? Would you have tried less or given him over to someone else? Would you have given up or refused to help if you had known that the numbers was 1 percent and not 50 or foresaw the future for what it is now? And if I had said that you made a mistake, that it was your fault that caused his death, would that take away the pain of his passing? Would his death have had more or less meaning? Tell me, Sakura, would it have saved him?" Sakura looked up at her teacher and was unable to answer because none of her answers were things that she could accept at the moment. What she felt and what she knew warred inside her and being right just wasn't enough to take away the burn of her failure.

"You know the answer to those questions, Sakura." Tsunade said softly, reading her student with a practiced eye. "Whatever I say won't convince you of what you already know, even if it were the truth. Feeling sorry for yourself won't change what has happened. And here I thought you had already learned that lesson." Sakura stared sharply ahead, eyes turned passed Tsunade's ear and shoulder, her mind racing through Tsunade's words and turning it over and over. This time there was no doubt in her mind about the disappointment in her shishou's voice. "Take a week off, Sakura," her mentor sighed tiredly when Sakura remained still and silent and unresponsive. "I want you to come up with your own answers if you are not satisfied with what you have now and what I have given you. If you are not ready in a week, don't bother to show up as my apprentice. I don't have time to waste on the weak-minded."

"Shishou!" Sakura and Shizune shared a look at finding themselves both protesting out-loud at the same time. Sakura shook her head at her sempai before straightening to face her teacher, finally snapped out of her trance. "I-I can't afford a week off, Tsunade-shishou." Not with Naruto and Sasuke still so far ahead of her. Sakura did not need to say the words. They all knew what she meant. What she feared more than anything was to be left behind again, staring after her teammates' backs. More than death or pain or fate of what was to come, Sakura feared letting her friends down a second time.

"I can't afford to waste mine or Shizune's time when you're like this, either." Tsunade replied evenly while Shizune looked away again, mouth grimly shut. "If you want to train, if you want to be stronger, then don't look at me like you have lost your will to fight. This is the conclusion of today's lessons."

Without waiting for her reply, Tsunade turned to go. Whatever looks her teacher shot Shizune, the other was not given a choice to linger. Sakura remained there, eyes wide and unseeing. Emotions burned their way through her chest and cramped her stomach. Guilt gave way to fear and self-doubt. What would she do now? If Tsunade gave up on her, how would she ever be able to catch up to Naruto or Sasuke? How would she be of any help if she was still so weak?

Down two corridors and Sakura found herself just as quickly pressed up to the wall. There, Tsunade was standing over the grieving parents. It was her job, Sakura realized, a job that Sakura had dreaded but still her responsibility. More than anything though, this showed how close Sakura was to losing everything if she didn't pull herself together. Tsunade and Shizune must both have known she was there to witness this, while the shame of her failure weighed even more heavily than ever before. Her eyes shifted over to the hunched figure of the boy's mother, unexpectedly drawn...

In that moment, all of Sakura's fears were silenced in the face of the grief she had caused. How could she be so self-centered when a child had died due to her own inabilities? She had _felt_ him die. Why was she only thinking about herself when it was someone else's dreams that had ended that day - crushed dreams that ended other dreams?

Without anyone noticing, Sakura turned the other way and slipped out from one of the side exits. The sobs of a mother's heartbreak echoed after Sakura even as she put the hospital far behind her. She really didn't have the guts to face what would happen next. In the two years that Naruto and Sasuke had left her, since Kakashi's reassignment to long-term missions at his own request, she had been alone up until now. There was no one she could go to for answers or anyone to reassure her that she wasn't in the wrong. Other than Tsunade and Shizune - neither of whom she could seek comfort in for this - she had no one else who would be able to relate or that she could rely on in these types of situations. Her parents would never be able to understand and talking to them would only make her feel worse. She wasn't close enough to any of the rookie nine to want to share such a private and vulnerable moment with...

Sakura realized then that this was just going to have to be something that she'd pull through on her own.


	2. Chapter 2

_"Truth is not relative, our understanding of it is." _

* * *

**Teacher's Pet **

_by Blue Jeans_

* * *

Contrary to popular beliefs - or in this case, just Ino's loud opinions - Sakura did not spend all her time studying medic-ninjutsu under Tsunade's tutelage. She didn't just learn to dodge either. Ninjutsu, taijutsu, and even genjutsu had never been skills that Sakura had a claim to being anything more than average on, and for the majority of the three she wasn't even that. In almost all areas, even the one she was supposed to have an affinity for, she was woefully lacking in her jutsu knowledge and level. 

It was a handicap of having civilian parents and years of caring only about boys and fitting in.

Two years did not mean she would catch-up in all three departments, not when she was also learning medical jutsu and dodging a heavy variety of projectiles from Tsunade. She had improved her chakra control to new levels and gained unimaginable strength, but Sakura also trained herself in other ways too. She mostly asked Shizune for help, as Kakashi was never anywhere she could locate him at and Tsunade had a village to take care of. Sometimes, if Shizune was too busy, she would be put in with another group under another Jounin teacher, or even handed into Iruka's care again. Sometimes she would be given a scroll and it would take her twice as long to figure out the frustrating moves without someone to show her and correct her. But she did it and she learned.

In the end, it was being placed with other teams that made Sakura feel the most burdensome and the most awkward. Teams were essentially designed for a three-man cell and she always felt like an extra wheel whenever working with another group came up. Granted, it taught her quickly how to adapt to others and it was a vital skill that all medic-nins needed to learn, but she was always the intruder. She was always left to feel like the one looking at what she had lost and stumbling to regain some illusion of it back. She was, in the end, always alone.

She had not lied to Sasuke when she said that if he left she would lose all that was important to her - she had just never realized how important Naruto and Kakashi had also become in her small world. She never thought that she would miss anyone else or hurt as bad because of anyone else. Naruto's bandaged face that she could not say goodbye to except in a promise, and Kakashi's sudden and silent disappearance, all that had hurt her as much as Sasuke's whispered thanks when he had left her behind.

She had been too weak, even then, to incite a reaction past insults and barely heard gratitude.

So, driven by those memories for two years, she killed herself in training. And when there was an iota of free time, she would pillage the libraries and dig deep into the files concerning anything related to Orochimaru that she could find. What she did find mostly disturbed her. Her shishou's former teammate was almost cruel in his experimentations, most of what he did and what he discovered, were classified. How he was able to even get away with half of it made Sakura doubt her own village for quite a few months! She still filed away every scrap of information she could find, piecing together the broken puzzle with whatever she could get with her authorization. Akatsuki came up quite a few times and the question marks left in the wake of their abilities made Sakura uneasy. But, she hoped that even these little things that she did would one day make her useful to her important people.

Sitting on the roof that day, looking in the direction of the forest, Sakura wondered where her teammates were now. Sasuke... Naruto... Kakashi... She went over each of them in her head. Those precious memories when they had laughingly ate at Ichiraku's ramen stand. Naruto always insisted on seconds whenever he had Miso-ramen, his favorite flavor from what she had observed. Sasuke wasn't always cold and had once even reluctantly admitted to how lame Kakashi's excuses were getting. This small confession had happened unexpectedly by the bridge where they had been waiting for their teacher to show up and Sakura smiled, remembering the similar expressions that were on both her and Naruto's face. Kakashi had always been too kind to her. At the gates of Konoha, with his perverted book in hand, he had ruffled her dirt-smudged hair and assured her that she did good this time, too. Even though, in the end, all she ever really did for missions were keeping the boys from killing each other. That time they tried to see what lay beneath Kakashi's mask and the more painful moment on the roof-top, when she couldn't even stop the two from trying to take each other's heads off... How could she possibly rewind and take back those times with these weak hands that couldn't save a civilian? She hadn't even been on the battle-field when it had happened.

Not useless, Sakura snorted at the mantra that had gotten her through the physical and mental anguish of the last two years, watching her efforts falling to waste. She had been lying to herself and no one else. She had also been so assured that she was different now, but was she really? Was she still that girl who had been unwilling to face the facts till it walked away? Almost two years of medic training and every waking hour spent on getting stronger, what had that all led up to? Surgeries that ended like this, teammates that abandoned her without pause...?

She was still so weak.

"You're annoying," Sasuke had told her countless times, almost fondly in the end. While Naruto had always treated her better, she sometimes thought he acted as if she were a civilian girl and not a kunoichi worthy of respect and a wise amount of fear. Kakashi protected her too, so much so that he never relied on her. Her previous teacher never saw potential in her like he did her other teammates. Kakashi had always counted on Naruto or Sasuke to compensate for her lacking. She knew this now, looking back. If her ex-Sensei had believed she was worthy, he would never have given up on her and left like that when there were no one else but her remaining. If Naruto had thought she was strong, he would never have taken all the responsibility for failing to bring Sasuke back. If Sasuke had truly found her worthy, he would never have left, or at least, he would have taken her with him. It should have never been just Kakashi and Naruto out there in the wilderness, fighting to bring Sasuke back. And if either of them had ever viewed her as a teammate, they would have berated her for being absent. All she got was pity and guilt when they faced her, and that had hurt more than anything else. She should have been there every step of the way but not even Naruto yelled at her for being a coward, for not being the Sakura he knew the way he did when Sasuke failed to be brave.

"Am I just going to sit here and cry?" Sakura demanded to herself angrily, tears falling onto those useless hands of hers despite her words. "Are you just going to remain a burden, forever?" She clutched her hair harshly in anguish, wishing the pain would stop her helplessness.

The village bustled beneath her and the wide world that laid outside, just beyond the gates and passed the quiet forest, gave no answers. Sakura put her fisted hands to her eyes and was unable to stop the falling of tears. "Idiot, idiot, idiot!" she harshly berated herself since no one else would. "Stop it! It's not going to bring them back. Crying isn't going to bring anyone back nor make anyone acknowledge you!"

_"If you want to train, if you want to be stronger, then don't look at me like you have lost your will to fight."_

The will to fight! Sakura looked up sharply and the scenery before her did not change. "The will to fight," she repeated to herself out-loud, fist hitting her thigh as she straightened and willed those words to power.

Tsunade had asked her the same question half a year ago, before her Chuunin exam. She had just been taught the basics of Tsunade's strength and was told that she would only pass her shishou's new test and learn the skill if she could crush the large boulder in Practice Arena 8. Used to 100 percent success rate on all forms of exams, even under Tsunade's intense lessons, Sakura had been overconfident that she would succeed. This would just be like tree-walking, she had thought, once the concept was explained and demonstrated to her.

When Shizune came to get her for lunch around noon, the other had found Sakura slumped over the dented boulder with her one arm broken in six-places and the other barely healed. It was countless, how many times Sakura had repaired her own arms that day. "You haven't done it yet," the dark-haired kunoichi noted dispassionately as she studied the somewhat scathed rock and then the roughed up girl on the ground. Sakura was more than skilled enough by then to deal with the damages of her body but she did not move from her place by the boulder. "Are you not going to heal that?" Shizune asked her quiet form, the same way one would casually ask a stranger about the weather. "Or, are you giving up?"

Sakura looked up sharply then, annoyed at the cool expression on Shizune's face. Ton-ton chose that moment to oink and strolled over to the boulder with a look in those beady eyes that made Sakura cringe ever so slightly. "If you're not, then why are you not training?"

"It's painful," Sakura finally said with angry frustration.

"Did you think it would be easy?" Sakura froze at Tsunade's voice. Her shishou stepped from the shadows of the trees and walked to stand beside Shizune. Ton-ton nudged Sakura's thigh before turning back to her owner. It was the accuracy of Tsunade's words that struck Sakura to speechlessness. "If it were easy, would I be one of the legendary Sanin to have such a skill? Would not Kakashi have taught it to you by now?" Sakura had looked away in guilty annoyance. At that time she was still bitter at Kakashi for abandoning her without a word and the mere mention of him made her depressed. Not that Sakura was anymore over it now, but at the time, it stung ten-times more when his name was mentioned. She honestly didn't believe for a second that he would have actually taught her anything unless it happened to coincide with teaching the boys as well. With both Naruto and Sasuke gone, he hadn't stuck around long enough to even tell her goodbye. "Are you giving up then? Is this the extent of your will to fight?" Tsunade's words pounded their way into her skull and still managed to sound trite.

Sakura seethed and her arm lashed out, fist smashing a spider-webbed pattern into the boulder behind her. "No, Shishou," she had gritted out in both pain and rage. Her arm roared in agony as blood fell from her clenched fist and dripped into the dirt. Sakura's face did not show even a hint of the pain she was getting to know so well. "I haven't even scratched it." Despite her words, she had only really healed four of her six fractures and this attack had thoroughly aggravated what she had not yet healed. It also managed to break newly aligned bones and tore newly regenerated muscles. But, up until then, she had not even been half as successful as in that moment of rebellion and the elation that followed was as great as the physical discomforts, neither of which was evident on her face.

Tsunade smiled at her then with a look Sakura had never been given before by her teacher. For a moment, Sakura thought, her shishou wasn't looking at her at all. Maybe, even if briefly, she had reminded Tsunade of someone else. The moment passed as Sakura slowly rose to her feet.

"Sakura, are you running low on chakra?" Shizune finally asked. There was a hint of worry in the crease between Shizune's brows now that Sakura had regained her earlier determination. Shizune had always been the one who was kind when Tsunade could not afford the luxury.

"Don't underestimate me," Sakura changed the subject without blinking. "I have another arm, after all, and I'll have this boulder in pieces before sun-down!" She promised instead, her words making Tsunade tilt her head as Sakura gave the crumbling boulder another good smack.

"Good," her teacher finally said with a smirk and that was enough for Sakura even though Sakura's hand felt raw and swollen again. "I'll have Shizune bring you a bento later then. Dinner's on me if you actually manage to do what you say. If not, she'll eat in front of you and you get nothing until you do exactly what you say, understood?"

Sakura blinked, a little disturbed at this since it suddenly reminded her of an earlier lesson from another time when she had been someone else. However, in the end, she settled on grinning instead, still avoiding the urge to heal the bruises emerging on the back of her hands. There were more important things to use her chakra on than pain and bruises, and until every body part of her is broken and useless or until she succeeds, she wasn't going to stop.

"As long as it isn't Miso-ramen," she answered evenly, turning her back on both women. "I prefer tempura and anko dumplings, thanks!"


	3. Chapter 3

_"Truth is not relative, our understanding of it is." _

* * *

**Teacher's Pet **

_by Blue Jeans_

* * *

She bought lilies from a stall two blocks down from her roof-top. It was not the same as Ino's flower shop, but Sakura really didn't want to see the blonde, not with her face still red from tears and her inner-self in turmoil. The civilian woman in the little stand looked at her a bit weird but noticed her shuriken holster and didn't ask any questions after. For a brief moment of feminine vanity, Sakura wished she were one of those women who looked more beautiful sad. It wasn't going to happen, but a girl could hope, Sakura reasoned. 

For someone who had such a tragic love-story already in the works by the age of twelve, Sakura always thought that whoever wrote the script of her life could have at least been considerate enough to make her a beautiful crier. After all, in her earlier years she had cried quite a bit, and despite having grown stronger, she still fell prey to tears easily. Tears of anger, tears of frustration, and tears of pain, she had cried them all. If they were going to make a crier out of her, at least don't make her skin so sensitive that the mere hint of the salty liquid would leave red blossoms on her face, condemning evidence of the emotions she had never had a good grip on hiding. The fact that her nose became a faucet in these situations made the act even less appealing, though that never stopped the crying before.

Sakura really hated crying.

A few blocks down with the paid for flowers in her hands, Sakura entered Team 7's old training ground. There was the cenotaph with the names of dead heroes who went down in the line of duty. Sakura headed there first and respectfully sat her flowers by the stone of names. She paused, eyes tracing familiar and unfamiliar names and wondered which one was the "best-friend" Kakashi referred to when they had first met in battle here. Their bell-test those years ago, it was nostalgic to think of it now. She prayed that Naruto and Sasuke's names will not be on there for a long, long time. If Sasuke ever died when he was no longer considered a Missing-nin, that is.

"Even though your name would never be on this," Sakura murmured and sent a small prayer up to the dead. The boy who had gone in the night with a cute name of strawberries and a smile that would have been like Sasuke's at that age, if Sasuke had ever really smiled... This was the least she could do to atone.

"Sakura?"

She stilled as she turned around slowly and found a familiar face greeting her own. "Kakashi-sensei," she blurted out in surprise before she could stop herself. The elation quickly was smothered by the fact that this was the first time she's spoken to him in two years, outside of a casual wave or a "Yo" in passing (if even that). Not that she had gone out of her way after the first few months to track him down, she had been too hurt and too angry to breach the gap that grew between them.

Now, standing awkwardly before the memorial stone where they first became teammates, Sakura could not help but feel the hunger for companionship. Yet, caution gave her pause. She wasn't twelve anymore, not just because she grew up but because those people that once mattered had a history with her now. Happiness and disappointment, success and sorrow, they colored the conversation with what was underneath the underneath. And Kakashi's history with her was that he abandoned her, even when he was the one who taught her that nothing was more important than her teammates.

"Yo!" he crinkled his eye with a familiar wave. Then, as the silence stretched, he looked passed her shoulder at the stone and ignored her accusing stare. "Visiting someone?" he asked casually. Maybe he was surprised that she may have known anyone at all on that stone, which she didn't, but he didn't show it. Kakashi, despite his penchant for lateness, was a master ninja. He followed rule 25 flawlessly and many of the other ones Sakura had memorized but had as hard a time being true to. He was also her former teacher, but it only made things more weird.

"No, I was just paying my respects," she answered at last. "And, saying goodbye to a dream."

Her teacher studied her, as if her face would reveal the secret to her cryptic answer. It was either that or he was trying to make her feel uncomfortable. "Want to go for Ichiraku's with me? Old times sake." he asked and Sakura felt her eyes widen as she studied his slouched and casual form.

"Why are you here, Kakashi-sensei?" she asked carefully. He hadn't so much as bothered to comment on the weather with her in the last two years and suddenly he's inviting her to eat-out? Something was wrong here. Pry underneath the underneath, Sakura thought, and you'd find meddling mentors who wanted to be the bad-cop while sending the good-cop covertly to her aid. Sakura also thought that one of these days she was going to have to write a memo to Tsunade that Kakashi failed being the good-cop long ago, when he left her behind as soon as he was the only one she thought she could depend on.

"Coincidentally meeting you here," he answered as casually as his earlier remark, though nothing was ever really casual about Kakashi. "Didn't want to be rude and not say hi to a former student," he added. He had always been a liar. If he really cared about her or didn't want to be rude, he would have done this long ago. However, while she seethed at his reply, Kakashi's hand was reaching into his pocket and Sakura had a sinking feeling she knew what he was going to pull out next.

"Kakashi-sensei," Sakura said softly, stilling his movement as her gaze was even and unwavering upon him. "You haven't spoken to me in two years. Why are you really here?" And all the pain and all the accusations she didn't have the courage to voice was laid bare in that second as they stood on the training grounds. In between the words, she put forth every disappointed hope, every casual passing he gave her without pausing to find out why she had walked away from him when Sasuke left, and most of all, never explaining to her why she had not even warranted a helping hand when she had no one but him to depend on. Two years, had it really been that long? Another year and Sasuke may lose his body, if he hadn't lost his mind already, and all this time she had barely got passed hello with her former sensei until now.

Kakashi looked back at her blankly and whatever thoughts he had, he never showed it to her. "You've really grown up, Sakura." He said instead, and the matter-of-fact way he said it made her blink. There was no claim to the pride for her growth, he had no right to it, but for the first time, maybe Kakashi was seeing her too. Maybe, for a moment there, he saw that she wasn't just the squealing girl who thought nothing but being by Sasuke's side.

A smile spread onto Sakura's lips, sad and triumphant. It should have been awkward, Sakura thought. After all this time we are practically strangers and he owes me nothing and so much. But, he was here now and surely, soon Naruto and Sasuke would come back to her as well. They may never apologize for leaving, but that was not what she wanted from them in the end, anyway. "And you," Sakura said with a nostalgic tilt of her lips as she walked up to her former sensei who wasn't as tall or as big as she remembered him being, but still managed to effortlessly tower over her. "You haven't changed at all."

Kakashi raised a brow at her and Sakura flashed teeth at his amused stare. "I'll take you up on the ramen," she finally said after a pause. "But only if you pay for it," she folded her arms and shot her teacher a challenging look.

Kakashi scratched the side of his mask-covered face sheepishly at her words. "You really have no faith in me, Sakura," he noted as they turned to go.

"Not at all," Sakura answered, crossing her arms over her chest for emphasis before laughing.

Kakashi cast a look over his shoulder at the memorial stone before turning to look down at his former student. "Did the dead have anything good to tell you, today?" he asked.

Sakura paused and studied him. There was something shrewd in her gaze, a clarity that had been missing when he had first met the girl. "Did Shizune send you?" Sakura asked point-blank.

Kakashi almost faltered but hid his reaction well. Sakura was never this direct in the past, at least, not the way he remembered her. "Are you avoiding my question?" he asked casually.

"You've been avoiding mine," she remarked back evenly.

"Hm," he hummed. "A little bird told me," he said vaguely.

"Well, I'm sure that your little bird will tell you what the dead had to say as well. It's very well informed, after all." So maybe she was still a little bitter about being left behind. She'll get over it. For a long time they were silent. Kakashi flipped a page in his _Icha Icha_ book that he had finally and expectantly taken out of his side-pouch, wisely keeping his peace when Sakura didn't berate him for it. She really had changed, perhaps more than he had expected her capable. "Kakashi-sensei," Sakura said, this time sounding a little less confident and a little bit more like the young girl he remembered her being. He hummed a response and waited her out. "Were you disappointed with me?"

Raising a brow, he glanced to her sideways. She had been nice enough to be walking on his right but she wasn't looking at him now or looking down. Sakura was staring straight ahead, but her expression was thoughtful. He didn't know why she was asking such a thing, but she also didn't look the way he thought people would look when saying such things. "I was," she finally said, "really angry at you for a long time. Even now," she confessed as she turned to him then and her eyes for a moment blazed with the emotion. Its intensity surprised him, but she had always been more passionate than he was comfortable with, even if that passion was more tied up with Sasuke in the past than aimed at anything else. She wasn't that girl anymore, it seemed. "But, maybe, I wasn't the only one disappointed. I thought," she paused and bit her lip self-consciously. "Maybe... I disappointed you, too."

Kakashi felt a bit awkward. Not only was Sakura a girl, and he never related to girls very well, but she was the type that talked about how she felt. She had been one of his three former students, the only ones he'd ever passed, and though he had viewed both Naruto and Sasuke as soldiers, potential tools for the future of Konoha, he had never treated Sakura like that. He had never really gave it a thought but he was far more surprised that not only did she notice but that she may have been hurt by it. Kakashi silently sighed, he had never been good with women and girls were even worse.

"I never thought of it like that," he answered honestly.

She almost looked a little relieved but then another look came over her face. "Never thought of it like that? Then, what did you think of me, Kakashi-sensei?"

Kakashi did not survive this long as a shinobi or become one of the best if he did not learn tact. If there was ever a loaded question, this was it. Somehow, Kakashi doubted that there was a right answer or, at least, an answer where he would come out of it the good-guy. "Why do you need to know, Sakura? If you have truly grown up, you must realize that what others think of you matters very little."

Sakura looked to him, and he wondered why Tsunade had gone and asked him to talk to his former student. They had never been close. This relationship never was one that went past the teacher-student stage. But, he was not in a position to refuse the Hokage and treating this like a mission made little difference. He hadn't talked to Sakura for awhile and despite their previous relationship, or perhaps because of it, he did still care about her well-being. The delicacy of their interactions was not something he was used to though. Lie or tell the truth, Kakashi found that to always be a dilemma when he spoke to Sakura and neither option was ever life-threatening, though life-altering may not have been much better of a difference.

The pink-haired kunoichi looked away again and thankfully they arrived at Ichiraku's before the awkwardness could stretch too long. The pair sat and waited for their orders, Sakura lost in thought and Kakashi lost in his book. It was not like the old times, he realized that when their food came. Sakura was not loud like Naruto nor did she brood, desperately pretending not to care, like Sasuke. She didn't try to fill the gaps her teammates left behind, as if she truly expected them to return someday to fill it themselves. She kept a conversation going nonetheless, occasionally asking him questions here and there about where he had been and what had he been up to since they had last seen each other. She wasn't bad company, though he did keep quite a bit of detail out of the things he mentioned to her in passing.

"Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura murmured tentatively at last. And Kakashi thinks, '_Ah, she will ask me now._'

"Hm?" Kakashi answered. His chin shifted in his hand as he looked up from his book. As expected, he had finished his bowl in a flash, distracting Sakura with an off-handed remark. By the time she looked back, with a sense of suspicion and dread, his ramen was already gone. It annoyed her that he would still do such a thing, even now, but it was also one of Kakashi's quirks.

"If... If someone failed a mission," Sakura paused and wondered how far she could go from here without confessing, which might as well have been spilling her guts out for Kakashi to inspect. "Would that make them... worse than trash?" As Kakashi watched her fidget, Sakura got the distinct impression that she was ridiculously bare in her remark. Obviously, he must have an inkling why she was asking this. When she had put it out there with such a voice, even if Shizune or Tsunade hadn't sent him, Kakashi was too sharp to miss what she was really saying.

He was, after all, the one who taught her to look underneath the underneath.

"Hm," Kakashi hummed a little again, and finally looked away. He closed his book and turned to face Sakura, hands on his knees. Now it finally made a little sense on why he was the one who was sent, even if he thought Tsunade was being less than subtle in revealing how much she knew of his past. "Only if he didn't try his best, Sakura. Even Ninja have their limits and exceeding such limits are not always within our means." Kakashi studied her surprised profile. This was a lot easier than Sakura thought it would be. But when she said nothing, too shocked to react, he sighed. "That is," he added softly, "what you wanted to hear, right?"

Sakura widened her eyes and quickly turned to see Kakashi's eyes turned down to his clasped fingers. "As one shinobi to another, Sakura," Kakashi continued, slower and softer and more intimate this time, as if he did not notice her jerking movement, "we are responsible for lives, our own and the lives of others. Sometimes we succeed in protecting them and sometimes we don't and sometimes we have to choose between the mission and our teammates. Who is at fault and who is to blame when we fail, in the end, it doesn't bring the person back nor does it prevent the consequences of the choices we make." Kakashi looked up to meet Sakura's trembling gaze. Now there was nothing she could say. It hurt to listen, to hear so much helplessness spoken so plainly. It was not because the truth hurt, which it did, but that the entire complex, twisted things that boiled inside of her were described like this. Sakura thought, if she had been a better ninja, she wouldn't need someone to explain this to her, again and again. Kakashi, on the other hand, was surprised he was saying all this at all and to the person he least expected, even if she did not understand how much his words came from Kakashi's own past. "The only disservice we can do for the dead, Sakura, is to let their death stop us from moving forward and helping others, don't you think?"

Sakura couldn't find it within herself to answer, but her gaze softened. The words of reprimand that she had been expecting, the accusing looks... none of that manifested itself on Kakashi's familiar face. The false comforts that he had given her earlier had not made her feel any better. In the end, Kakashi's version of the truth couldn't do that for her either. Sakura smiled sadly to herself as she looked to the remains of her dinner. What Kakashi said to her was not what she had expected, but he was also right in the sense that what she was doing now did not help the boy who died and it definitely did not help the people who were still alive. Even if the next step she took was burdened and filled with regret, she had other people who she had also made promises too and breaking that promise was not an option.

Her current actions won't bring back the dead, but not moving on won't amend the wrongs done either.

"Kakashi-sensei," Sakura spoke at last as the two of them were about to go their separated ways. "Thank you for today. I didn't realize how much I had missed this and I didn't think there would have been anyone here to talk to, but you came." And Kakashi felt a slow rising panic as a glimmer at the corner of Sakura's eyes began to spread. This was why the female species baffled him. On the battle-field with kunai and death nipping at his heels and everything made sense, but before Sakura's tearing form Kakashi felt rather clueless on how to handle the situation. Tell lies or tell the truth, Kakashi only knew the direct way and comforting falsehoods only seemed to work for him when they were employed in assassinations. "When it really mattered, Kakashi-sensei, you surprised me." She confessed softly with a smile, much to his chagrin. He hadn't tried to be nice and what he said was a bit painful, but perhaps Sakura had grown up from that girl who needed protection, even if it was the truth she had been unwilling to face. In her eyes, though, there was still the trust of a child's that looked back up at him.

This was why he was never good with girls.

Kakashi awkwardly patted her on her head. "Anytime," he said smoothly, though he felt anything but smooth since he had nothing else better to say. He sincerely hoped she never went to him for things like this again, but it could not be helped. Well, _Icha Icha_ always had been a source of inspiration for such things...

Sakura grinned and wiped her eyes a little, much to Kakashi's horror as he quickly drew his hand back, hoping she didn't notice his slight flinch. The pink-haired kunoichi giggled a bit girlishly, but was oblivious to Kakashi's discomfort. "I can't believe I'm crying again," she chided to herself. "I guess, I really did miss you." Kakashi remained silent, not quite sure how to respond to that or half the things she's already said to him. Did he matter this much to his former student? He hadn't realized it nor expected it. He felt an apology on the tip of his tongue though he wasn't quite sure what he was apologizing to her for. Luckily, she cut him off before he could dig himself into a deep, dark hole. "I'll get stronger, Kakashi-sensei. I won't disappoint you anymore!" With a swift nod of her head at her former teacher, Sakura turned on her heels to go.

"Sakura," Kakashi called after her and she paused, looking at him curiously over her shoulder as he hid his surprise at his own actions. "You have never disappointed me," he finally said a little stiffly. She smiled at him as if she thought he was finally being kind or lying to her, or a combination of both. But Kakashi never told lies for kindness' sake. He just never thought that she had the potential to grow this strong or this quickly. He just never thought that he slipped up enough for someone to depend on him this much again. Even with his eye, in the end, there were a lot of things he was blind to and Sakura had exceeded every expectation he had ever had for her.

"Good night, Kakashi-sensei," she said instead. He waved silently his farewell. Whether or not she accepted it, he was proud of her, even if he had nothing to do with how she had grown. Perhaps, that was why he felt this way, he reasoned as he turned the other way towards his own apartment. She had grown up all on her own, without his or anybody's prompting or help.

"Kakashi-sensei," he paused at the call and turned back in time to see Sakura waving at him vigorously down the street. "I forgive you!" she shouted with a grin before disappearing into the night.

Girls, Kakashi thought as he scratched his head in confusion. He was never going to figure them out.


	4. Chapter 4

_"Truth is not relative, our understanding of it is." _

* * *

**Teacher's Pet **

_by Blue Jeans_

* * *

Tsunade glared at her empty sake cup. Shizune was not in the office, sent in Sakura's place to retrieve some important documents from Morino Ibiki concerning the information gathered from that Sound-nin they had captured not too long ago. It was a miracle that they had gotten this far, though Ibiki wasn't the captain of Torture and Interrogation for nothing. Orochimaru was on the move, this they already knew, and none of it sat well with Tsunade in the least. Whatever news that would come to her in the next few hours would determine just how bad her day was going to be and she didn't doubt that it would only get worse from here. 

Under the light of the afternoon sun, Tsunade groaned.

Worst of all, as soon as Shizune left, Tsunade realized that she was out of sake! With a growing pile of paperwork, along with the Chuunin guards placed at the door (at her own, earlier request), she had been unable to leave to replenish her supply. She was also out of lackeys to send out and retrieve the brand of sake she preferred. She was even tempted to create a Genin, D-rank mission just for this situation alone.

Damn it! Of all the times for Sakura to have an emotional breakdown, this certainly wasn't the right one. Four more days, Tsunade tried to reassure herself. Four more days and Sakura would be back on track and Tsunade won't be out of sake ever again. She would have her cute-apprentice back by then so that half this paper-work would be done for her and sorted out by order of importance. When Sakura came back Tsunade would only have to look at the documents that required her special attention and...

Tsunade thudded her forehead against the currently half-rolled up scrolls before her. She didn't know if she was going to make it through these next four days with just herself and Shizune, not when Shizune had to pick up a lot of the work Sakura was not there to do, as well as Shizune's own work. Sakura had apparently become more integral in Tsunade's day-to-day activities than even Tsunade realized. The Godaime silently pondered on what would happen when she started to send her pink-haired assistant on missions again.

Perhaps she had been a little too harsh concerning Sakura's reaction to losing a patient...

Sakura did have to learn that patients died and skill wasn't always what was involved in saving them. The odds of survival weren't just numbers. Those numbers were predictors of the possibility of success, the probability of error and the proportionality of the luck on their side. Even if Sakura didn't want to admit it, the operation that Saitou Ichigo went through only had a 70 percent chance of success. The complications of the boy's previous life-style and the earlier surgeries he had already under-gone before Tsunade was ever Hokage had lowered that ratio to 50 percent. The fact that his parents waited this long to operate on him...

It hadn't been a pretty picture no matter how Tsunade had looked at it. This being Sakura's first death certainly didn't make it better, but it hadn't been that much of a surprise and honestly, that was why she had given Sakura the case. Her student had just been too proud, too sensitive and too inexperienced to understand that doing everything right didn't mean the end results would be predictable. And none of those things that drove Sakura away now were things that Tsunade could fault her for, but if Sakura didn't learn emotional restraint then one day she would have to pay the price for it.

It was just how things went and Tsunade would have to be cruel to prevent future disasters.

That Sakura was learning this now, in the safety of Konoha and not on the battle-field, was a blessing. Sooner or later Sakura would have had to learn to turn off that soft-heartedness she had, at least enough for it not to be self-destructive. These types of errors would one day cause Sakura's life if Tsunade didn't smash it out of her student. This type of softness, Tsunade decided as she looked out onto Konoha a bit wastefully, was not something a ninja like Sakura could afford to harbor. Regret, Tsunade learned first hand, was a blindness that would render a person useless, no matter how skilled they might have been. And death did not choose victims through fairness.

Tsunade heard her door swing open then, breaking through her thoughts on the past. "Shizune," Tsunade greeted with a heavy sigh. "I'm glad to see your back. Before you report, I want you to go get me some sake."

"Already done, Tsunade-shishou," a voice answered while the Godaime froze before spinning abruptly away from the window.

"Sakura!" Standing at the door was her student with a nervous smile. In her hand was a jar of the sake that Tsunade had been hoping for since she ran out of it right after Shizune left the office. "What are you doing here, Sakura?" Tsunade asked carefully, her face now serious as her initial joy at seeing both drink and student faded. "You know I forbid you to work until you got yourself together."

Sakura nodded swiftly as she crossed over to Tsunade's desk. The pink-haired apprentice set the jug of sake down and stepped back again. "Tsunade-shishou," Sakura said and then bowed deeply at the waist, much to Tsunade's amusement. "I came to apologize!"

"And what exactly are we apologizing for?" Tsunade asked when her student didn't straighten.

"I had asked to be your student but disregarded my own reasons these last few days," Sakura answered with her head lowered. "Sasuke... Naruto... Kakashi-sensei, even..." Sakura paused as if grasping at words that Tsunade knew her student had already thought over carefully. Well, at least now Tsunade knew that lazy bum Kakashi did talk to Sakura like she had ordered the man to. Maybe Tsunade underestimated how much the Jounin cared about his only female student, though that was highly unlikely. "I came to tell you that I have not lost my will to fight, Tsunade-shishou. I will get Sasuke-kun back and this time, I won't let Naruto fight this alone."

"That's good to hear," Tsunade answered airily, her hands on her hips as she studied her pupil. "But, you still haven't answered my earlier question. Why are you apologizing?"

Sakura's face was not visible but Tsunade did not need to see her student's expression to know Sakura meant every word she said. "I am sorry I disappointed you, Tsunade-shishou. I am also sorry for failing to save my patient. I tried to be stronger and follow the shinobi code, but as a medic-nin, I believe that I should have been able to complete that surgery successfully. This conclusion I arrived at, however... I will not allow it to stop me from getting stronger."

"Are you that proud, Sakura?" Her apprentice tensed at Tsunade's questions.

"Excuse me, shishou? Proud?" Sakura asked, head up and eyes round with surprise.

"Yes," Tsunade answered. "Proud. Do you truly believe that saving a life is like taking a test?" Sakura did not answer and looked back down onto the ground. Tsunade sighed at this, tired of not being able to read Sakura's expressions. "Stop bowing like an idiot, Sakura. Straighten up and look at me." Her student complied though there was still hesitation on Sakura's face and in her posture as she stood quietly before Tsunade's scrutiny. "You did everything by the book, Sakura. The surgery went perfectly."

"Shishou--?"

"Let me finish, Sakura." Tsunade cut her apprentice off. "If the only factor to that child's survival was how you cut him open then we would have had more successful surgeries." Tsunade let her arms fall to her sides as she sighed and looked up thoughtfully. "Sakura, being a medic-nin is not just about saving lives and healing others." Sakura gave her teacher an '_Are you serious?_' look, but Tsunade ignored it as she walked around her desk and leaned against the edge of it, right in front of her pupil. "Your job is also to understand what can and cannot be done, who needs to be healed first and who can wait, to ensure the maximum amount of lives saved with the power that you have. There are limits to our skills and some wounds we cannot heal, but even you know that there will be situations in the future where you will not be able to save everyone and sometimes that choice means that you have to decide who lives. When you are forced to make that type decision Sakura, the correct course of action you take is also the job of the medic-nin."

"Theoretically speaking, that was just a routine surgery and I did not have to make that type of decision then," Sakura interjected heatedly, her temper overruling her need to be submissive.

"Theoretically speaking, Rock Lee shouldn't be a ninja right now," Tsunade answered evenly. "Theoretically speaking, Gaara of the Sand should not have ever been made the Kazekage." Tsunade watched Sakura stiffen before her student gave the office a quick look-around, as if to check to see if anyone would have overheard Tsunade say such things. "Sakura, theoretically speaking, Naruto would never be Hokage no matter what he does and Sasuke should have succeeded in killing him two years ago." Sakura's shoulder tensed and her student visibly shook before she stiffly straightened again, green eyes burning fiercely as she looked into Tsunade's eyes. "You seem to get it now, huh? What should have happened doesn't dictate what does. Even if you are 100 percent correct, it does not mean you will win or that you will succeed. This same is true the other way around. I had watched you operate on that boy, Sakura, and you did nothing wrong. If you had, do you not think I would have stopped you or stepped in to correct your errors?"

Sakura closed her eyes and there was that naked expression of anguish on her face. As the Godaime and as a doctor, Tsunade saw such looks before, but Sakura would be one of the first shinobi to be so honest about it. The girl must have learned this foolishness from Naruto, Tsunade sighed to herself silently. After all, such a change took both tremendous courage and tremendous stupidity, the typical Naruto seal. It was hard to tell at times though, since Sakura had always seemed to have a side to her that was also remarkably like Naruto himself when she wasn't being guarded.

"Then, why, Shishou?" Sakura asked at last, her voice carrying every thought and every emotion she had felt in the last three days. She opened her eyes and looked directly at her teacher then. "Why wasn't it enough?"

"That's life, Sakura." Tsunade answered evenly. It was the only answer she knew. The Godaime paused. Her own eyes looked away as she remembered a certain teammate who had once asked a remarkably similar question before another had answered with these same words. It had been a long time ago and she had not thought about it for almost as long. Tsunade tried to remember then, how she had felt when she had heard those words before.

Sakura was silent, even when Tsunade looked up to her student again when she could find no answers in her own memories. There was an expression on Sakura's face that was remarkably like Naruto's own when he didn't like an answer that someone gave to him. However, Sakura was different from Naruto in one fundamental way, she did not call Tsunade up on it or ask Tsunade to defend the answers her mentor gave. Instead, the girl stayed politely silent and that rebellious look on Sakura's face eventually smoothed and faded in the quiet of the Godaime's office. "I know you don't like this, Sakura, and nobody does. But it is still a fact, nonetheless." Tsunade finally added wearily.

Sakura frowned, her lips opening at last, as if to protest. "I--"

"Tsunade-sama," Shizune's voice interrupted them as the dark-haired woman walked into the room with her arms full of scrolls. "I really think we should ask Sakura to come back." The assistant sighed as she nudged the door closed with her elbow while balancing the documents in her arms. "I would never want to--" Shizune paused as she turned around, looking up to see Sakura standing there with an amused quirk on her lips. Shizune's eyes widened. "Sa-Sakura!"

Sakura grinned a bit impishly at her sempai. She gave Shizune a wink before looking back at Tsunade. "So," Sakura said instead as she glanced passed Tsunade at the cluttered desk. "I'm going to guess that no one has organized those documents since I've been gone."

Tsunade huffed and crossed her arms under her chest, glad that neither of them had to have another awkward conversation about Sakura coming back or the incident that made her leave. Tsunade was also a little bit relieved that Sakura was back to normal. It did surprise her though, since she really hadn't expected Sakura to have recovered this quickly. Did she underestimate her own student this time? Well, with Shizune's entrance she could just get Sakura right back to work. It was better than doing the stupid paperwork on her own and she didn't even need to ask for Sakura to come back. Not that she'd have asked otherwise without some form of crawling and groveling from Sakura, Tsunade consoled herself silently. "You can start by organizing this mess then, since you're so eager." Tsunade ordered as she walked back to her seat and sat down heavily.

Shizune and Sakura shared a look and a silent smile.

"Tsunade-sama," Shizune said as she walked over to the Hokage, setting the scrolls down on-top of the piles already gathering on the Godaime's desk. "Morino-san's reports concerning that Sound-nin are here, but I also picked up a few of the records you had asked for earlier. Morino-san," Shizune said with a slight wrinkle on the bridge of her nose, "included a summary of the most important details that you should pay attention to." Sakura quirked a brow at this, her interest perked by what she heard. It seemed that she had gotten back at a crucial time. Tsunade, however, didn't bother to look at her current pupil nor did she fill Sakura in on what the other had missed. Well, Sakura wasn't a Chuunin for nothing, and information gathering was a skill she had to have in order to become what she was today. It would have just been easier if Tsunade didn't go out of her way to make Sakura's life more difficult.

"Good," Tsunade nodded as she glanced over the scrolls, ignoring the slight frown her apprentice was shooting her. "Clean up the rest of the desk before you leave today then, Sakura." Sakura nodded sharply before her eyes wondered distractedly over the fresh pile of work Shizune brought from the head-quarters of Torture and Interrogation. Tsunade didn't even have to look at her to know Sakura was wearing her puppy-dog face. "If you're finished with your other duties by tonight, maybe I'll let you look over these and see if I missed anything."

Sakura blinked and looked sharply to her teacher, her expression of barely contained excitement made her eyes shine brightly. "Right away, Tsunade-shishou!"

This time it was Shizune and Tsunade's turn to share a look and a silent smile.


	5. Chapter 5

_"Truth is not relative, our understanding of it is." _

* * *

**Teacher's Pet **

_by Blue Jeans_

* * *

"Ah, Sakura!" A voice interrupted Sakura's dinner as she slowly looked up from her medical notes. Tsunade had been working her like a vengeful slave-master, as if the time Sakura took off was really her own decision. This was the first time she had a chance to even look at the medical scrolls Tsunade had assigned to her before the surgery and as much as she wasn't a fan of ramen, Kakashi's invitation had sparked that nostalgic memory concerning Ichiraku. So, on her one night off early from under the Hokage's thumb, she found herself lounging at the small restaurant. 

When her eyes scanned over her shoulder, she saw, to her surprise, Umino Iruka to be the one who called out to her. Her former teacher smiled a greeting while settling himself down a stool over. Sakura blinked, a little startled. Iruka had been her Academy teacher almost three years back, and despite being the best female student in his class, they had never really been close. "Iruka-sensei, what are you doing here?" she queried, not quite sure what to say. In the back of her mind she thought of Naruto right away, but that was only because he was the only person she had ever been able to link to Naruto before Team 7.

"Uh, just having my dinner," Iruka answered easily but Sakura felt he was keeping something from her. "So, how's my brightest kunoichi doing?" Iruka asked and there was something really familiar about his personality and Sakura felt the urge to roll her eyes at him. She drummed her index finger against the wooden counter-top, studying her old teacher with a quizzical eye, after all, if she was to deduce Iruka's personality from past experiences than he was certainly acting out of character now. Sakura just couldn't put her finger on exactly what it was that made her feel this way. No, not his face, it didn't look any different from the last time she's seen him at the Academy when she was sent there for an errand. "Uh, Sakura?"

Sakura blinked. She leaned back, eyes widening slightly as if she was coming out of a trance. "Sorry, Iruka-sensei," she apologized, laughing nervously for staring at him so openly. "I was just thinking of something. I didn't quite catch what you were saying...?"

A past expression he had worn...

"Well, I was just asking what you were doing here." Iruka repeated himself. Before Sakura could answer though, the waitress, Ayame, came over and asked Iruka what he wanted. The familiar way that Ayame addressed Iruka made Sakura ponder if he was a regular at Ichiraku's. Naruto had always liked this place too... Perhaps, Iruka came as often as Team 7 used to, Sakura thought. Well, that may be true but that certainly wasn't what gave her pause.

"I'm studying," Sakura replied when Ayame went to attend to another customer. She tapped on the scroll she had been reading and Iruka glanced at it with a bit of curiosity. "Tsunade-shishou let me off earlier today so I thought I'd catch up on some reading." She was also there to be in the presence of Team 7's past, but she wasn't about to tell Iruka that.

"I didn't know you liked ramen," Iruka remarked off-handedly as he glanced up from her scroll. "That wasn't the impression I had."

Sakura gave him a look and the forced grin on his lips suddenly made Sakura wonder what he meant by that. "It's not my favorite, sure, but..." she trailed off as she studied her former teacher, a different type of light-bulb seemed to go off in her head. The fact that he had waited for them when the second part of Chuunin exam was done, when Naruto hugged him so enthusiastically that Sakura was almost embarrassed, and the expression Sakura saw on Iruka-sensei's face then, one that she didn't understand at the time. He was close to Naruto in a way she had never been and that means he knows Naruto in a way she also didn't. Of all her teammates, the only records that stubbornly remained out of her authorization was Naruto's own. She was sick of not being the one who didn't understand and didn't know. Sasuke's harsh words when she had first commented about family, Naruto's incessant blabber that never included anything about his past, and even her own teacher's mystery on how he had a Sharigan when he wasn't a descendant of the Uchiha clan, the slaughtered clan... "What do you mean that's not the impression you had of me, Iruka-sensei?" Sakura asked with all the casual curiosity of a civilian, except her eyes narrowed ever so slightly with a shinobi's hunger for information.

Iruka rubbed the back of his neck nervously as he waved his other hand in-front of him in a placating manner. The fact that she was Tsunade-hime's student gave a lot of people the impression that she wouldn't pause to smash their heads into a wall if they offended her, and Tsunade's infamous short-temper didn't help. This wasn't necessarily true, but it did put a dampener on her dating life, not that Team 7's reputation and her running herself into the ground hadn't already restricted Sakura's choices and chance meetings. It would have been somewhat flattering though if someone would at least take notice, Sakura sometimes thought this whenever she was in a huff of feminine vanity. The most disheartening thing was, even Ninja like her former teacher Iruka treated her as if she was going to explode at any moment! That really pissed Sakura off. After all, Iruka had been her teacher before and even if they didn't know each other very well, at least he should have known that she had more control of her faculties than that.

Sakura's glare was probably what made Iruka say what he did at that moment though, but that may also have been the fact that Iruka had never been smooth with women in general. "Well, from what Naruto told me, I got a different impression, that's all! It's nothing bad! He only said good things about you." Iruka quickly added, in case he caused Naruto grievous injuries or death despite Naruto's healing abilities. He didn't want a misunderstanding to occur because he didn't specify to Tsunade-hime's apprentice the types of comments Naruto made about her.

Sakura was immediately hooked by this little tibit since Iruka didn't make mention of their own acquaintance being at the root of his assumptions. Whatever Naruto had told him had certainly left an impression that overruled Iruka's own. Then again, that was one of Naruto's specialty, seeing what others missed. Sakura raised a disbelieving brow and the knuckles in her right hand cracked when Iruka offered no other forms of explaination. Her slight tactic of intimidation worked a bit better than she had expected when Iruka swallowed a bit harshly and blurted out rather gracelessly. "Th-that is, he does like you!! I mean, you're his teammate and all." Iruka mumbled, adding that last bit almost as an after-thought.

The atmosphere suddenly dropped ten degrees as Iruka stared at Sakura and Sakura stared back, but her expression was that of utter shock. "E-excuse me?" That Naruto talked about Sakura, well, that wasn't too surprising since they were teammates. The fact that Naruto talked about Sakura to Iruka concerning his feelings for her... well, that did give her pause, considering what little interactions she had witnessed between the two. But to hear that Naruto liked her from someone else, even with that tacky bit at the end to smooth out the seriousness of such a comment, that was almost like a confession and it stopped Sakura cold. Up to this point, Sakura had never taken Naruto's requests for dates seriously. He didn't like her like that, he _couldn't_ like her like that, because she had always assumed he was just trying to annoy her about the fact that Sasuke was never going to look her way. Even after all this time, that one belief out of all her others concerning Naruto, remained. Mostly due to the fact that Sakura never had to question it until now. And who was Iruka-sensei to Naruto, anyway, to say such a thing to her? Why did she not know this after all this time?

Sakura was angry with herself for being so blind and, of course, she turned that frustration out onto the first unlucky person at hand, Iruka - the messenger.

Iruka was completely silent now, his mouth a grimly sealed in a line of rebellion. For a Chuunin teacher, Sakura had a feeling that outside of the classroom, he didn't know how to talk to women very well or else she would never have heard even a whisper of this out of him. His words might even have placated a civilian girl into believing that lame excuse Iruka gave at the end, but Sakura was a shinobi trained to read underneath the underneath and Iruka hadn't been smooth enough with her to make her doubt her findings. Inner Sakura leered, because if Iruka assumed that she was going to pry the information out of him through sheer force then Sakura was going to pry it out of him through sheer cunning, or a combination of both. Sakura refused to be blinded any longer about her teammates, they were too important to her, and Naruto, surprisingly, had been the hardest nut to crack. After what Naruto had done for her, the least she could do was to get to know him better, and that included the important people in his life too. Inner Sakura insisted all this with a wicked grin spreading across her lips. And if in the process she just _happened_ to confirm what she suspected that he really felt about her, this time she would take those feelings to heart, and wouldn't that be all the better for everyone?

Sakura smiled at Iruka pleasantly, showing teeth. Then she shifted over to sit right next to him. There, on the tip of his forehead, she saw a drop of sweat forming and a very thin line of a hidden frown. Her medic-nin eyes immediately noted the slight increase in tension in Iruka's shoulders while the rapidity of his breathing changed as well. Good, she got him exactly where she wanted him. At least he was far easier to read than Kakashi-sensei ever was. "And what, pray tell," Sakura begun slowly as she leaned forward while Iruka leaned back, "were some of these _good_ things that Naruto likes about me, Iruka-sensei?"

"N-nothing," Iruka answered wtih a nervous chuckle, then cleared his throat in embarrassment at this clear sign of intimidation. The chopsticks in Sakura's other hand made a loud, snapping noise and Iruka's gaze shifted quickly over between Sakura's clenched fist and Sakura's eerily cheerful smile. "Nothing bad, you know that!" Iruka amended quickly, since the obviousness of his lies were directing him down the road of doom. After all, Iruka had been one of the few people to see Sakura break walls and boulders apart with her bare-hands and that had been quite an experience to remember now. Fact of the matter was, despite her struggle through the last trial of the Chuunin exam three years ago, Sakura's second time taking it was almost a frightening sight considering how much she had grown in such short period of time and how quickly she trampled the competition.

And to think that his pink-haired former student, of all his students, would one day be the most intimidating...

"You already said that, Iruka-sensei," Sakura chided her teacher with a promise in her eyes that spelled nothing good for the Chuunin. Despite everything, Iruka still stubbornly refused to elaborate. It was not his place to tell Sakura something like this. Even if Naruto never said it directly, since the boy was never really good at articulating such things, Team 7 changed Naruto's life. Sakura, Sasuke and Kakashi were the first people other than Iruka to matter to Naruto like that. These important feelings were not things Iruka had a right to point out if Naruto's own teammates still hadn't taken notice. Sakura's fist slammed against the counter-top, rattling some of the wears and making Iruka wince. He couldn't help but jump a little at this display, but Sakura was already straightening, tired of Iruka's misconception of her, especially if it wasn't going to get her what she wanted. "Look, I'm not going to hurt Naruto if he said something stupid. He's my important teammate too, and even if, at times, he's a completely perverted idiot, he's brave and loyal when it matters." Sakura glared at Iruka while he widened his eyes at what she was saying. Perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps Naruto didn't just care about his teammates but that this one, at least, cared for him back. "So, my question to you, Iruka-sensei, is what do you mean when you said he likes me? And who the hell are you to Naruto, anyway?" Perhaps she did take after Tsunade in the short-temper department, Sakura conceded silently to herself. But Iruka couldn't just say something like that and expect her to leave it alone! Even if not now, Sakura was going to hound him to the ends of his days to pry the information out of him, even if she had to do it out of his cold, dead hands, she would.

Sakura was practically growling at Iruka and glaring at him just as fiercely when he didn't answer her immediately.

Iruka's own expression changed slowly as he too suddenly understood the situation in a different light. Sakura's over-protective stance on Naruto and her not liking ramen but being at Ichiraku anyway, this must all pointed to one thing and one thing only... "You really feel--!!" Iruka begun, index-finger pointed at Sakura with shock and astonishment.

"Iruka-sensei!!" Sakura snarled, fists clenched on the counter-top of Ichiraku's as all her knuckles cracked ominously. Iruka froze, realizing his error too late. It was exactly the wrong thing to say at that moment. After all, Iruka had never been smooth with the ladies and now he was going to have to pay the price.

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End.

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_**-** Four - in Asian culture is a number associated with death because the pronunciation of it is similar to saying death._

_**-** You may notice that, several times, during the story Sakura is given advice or 'words of wisdom' by her mentors. I didn't want her just to accept these answers because Sakura's older now so she's bound to question more what she is given, even if she is still more submissive to authority than either Naruto or Sasuke will ever be. Just because she doesn't contest it as much as her teammates doesn't mean she believes everything she's fed._

_**-** The purpose of this fic was to smooth over a few unanswered moments of awkwardness in the 2 and 1/2 year time skip and the subsequent reunion, things that weren't explained when Naruto came back to town._

_**-** I had Iruka call Sakura in a very intimate way without any honorifics because in Volume 28, when Iruka saw Team Kakashi off, he said Naruto and Sakura's names without honorfics when addressing them to Tsunade and Jiraiya. It may not be what he uses to address them in person and it may just be the translation I had, but it was the only thing I had to go on... Because of that, I also had to fit Iruka into the story-line to show that there is some relationship between Sakura and him after she graduated for him to warrant calling her in such a way!_

_**-** I deliberately left whether or not Sakura completely resolved her guilt over Ichigo unfinished. It isn't something she's going to get over or stop thinking about ever, he is her first after all. The main point of it was that I wanted to move her to a point where she realizes that she can't afford to let it stop her from moving forward and getting stronger. I also didn't want to diminish Ichigo's death by saying "And she was over it!" in a three day time period - impossible in real life considering how deeply Sakura felt it. Let me just leave it at the fact that she will still think about it on occasion and it _had_ changed her and her perspective on a lot of things. Unfortunately that's all the time I really had for it and despite it being the catalyst of this story it will have to remain unresolved after all._

_**-** Slight change: Iruka actually said something completely different in that last sentence that got him in trouble with Sakura in the past version but I thought it unfair since that type of sentence kept getting cut off in the manga. So in the spirit of Kishimoto, I decided to leave it the way he intended it - a.k.a. drive the fans mad! And, yes, Sakura hinted herself that she knew a lot more about her teammates than before when Team Kakashi was traveling to Suna to rescue Gaara. The fact that she knew about Itachi, the fact that she wasn't surprised that Naruto was the container for a demon - though it still remained news to her - and her own confession on researching the Akatsuki and Orochimaru, all meant that Sakura did a pretty damn thorough search on the backgrounds of her teammates. However, because the facts are missing on Naruto, I thought Sakura would be a bit frustrated that her only information source - Iruka - wasn't being all the cooperative. I'm also a NaruSaku fan, can you tell?_

_**-** Iruka's piece kept getting changed because I am still somewhat peeved by it. It is the only inconsistent piece that is a bit out of character in here. I hope this version is better than what I started out with._


End file.
